ROMAN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

PARTICULARLY  AUGUSTINE'S  CONFESSIONS 


BY 


ANDREW   FLEMING  WEST 


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ROMAN   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


PARTICULARLY  AUGUSTINE'S    CONFESSIONS 


BY 


ANDREW    FLEMING    WEST 


THE  DE  VINNE  PRESS 
1901 


NOTE 

This  lecture  was  delivered  at  Yale  University 
and  repeated  at  Princeton  in  February,  1 90 1. 
For  the  references  to  John  Stuart  Mill  and  to 
Jean  Paul  I  am  indebted  to  my  colleagues 
Professors  Daniels  and  Humphreys. 

Andrew  F.  West 

Princeton  University 
February,  1 90 1 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2009  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/romanautobiograpOOwest 


ROMAN    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
PARTICULARLY  AUGUSTINE'S   CONFESSIONS  ^ 

I 

As  no  book  perfectly  conceals  the  traits  of  its  writer,  there  is  an 
indefinite  sense  in  which  all  literature  may  be  said  to  be  autobio- 
graphical. Diaries,  journals  and  letters  at  once  occur  as  strongly 
marked  examples.  It  is  a  short  step  from  these  to  tales  of  ad- 
venture and  travel,  to  histories  of  campaigns  written  by  generals 
who  led  them,  to  biographies  revealing  the  describer  quite  as 
clearly  as  the  person  he  describes,  and  only  another  step  to  medi- 
tations and  lyric  verse,  while  a  last  step  may  bring  us  to  books 
in  general,  inasmuch  as  in  some  degree,  no  matter  how  faint, 
they  all  mirror  the  traits  of  their  composers. 

Yet  all  literature,  though  in  this  general  sense  autobiograph- 
ical, is  not  autobiography,  which  is  but  a  small  part  of  literature. 
While  we  may  not  be  able  to  frame  a  perfect  definition  that  shall 
include  autobiographies  only,  we  are  none  the  less  assured  that 
autobiography  is  a  distinct  thing.  Some  books,  indeed,  conform 
so  closely  to  the  character  of  self-written  lives  that  it  is  not  easy 

1  In  this  lecture  I  desire  to  bring  out  autobiography,  the  objective  and  the  in- 

collaterally  three  facts  which  have  not  trospective,  originated  in  Latin  litera- 

received  recognition  in  histories  of  lit-  ture.      A    fourth   fact,  little    noticed,  is 

erature:  first,  that  autobiography  is  un-  that    'autobiography'    is     evidently     a 

known    in    classical   Greek   literature;  word  of  recent  coinage,  and  probably 

second,  that  it  is  a  native  form  of  Latin  not  yet  a  century  old. 
literature;  and  third,  that  both  types  of 


to  decide  whether  they  fall  just  inside  or  just  outside  our  class. 
Others,  like  Caesar's  Commentaries  and  Cicero's  Letters ^xhoxx^ 
packed  with  autobiographical  material,  stand  a  little  farther  re- 
moved, and  at  a  still  greater  distance  we  may  place  such  a  book 
as  the  /Inabasis  of  Xenophon,  for  while  it  contains  much  per- 
sonal history,  it  is  personal  history  inwoven  in  a  larger  narrative. 
But  neither  collections  of  letters,  nor  narratives  of  campaigns 
related  by  those  who  conducted  them,  nor  even  diaries  and 
journals,  though  abounding  in  the  stuff  of  which  autobiographies 
are  made,  are  themselves  autobiographies.  For  in  its  normal 
sense  an  autobiography  implies  two  things, —  first,  with  respect 
to  substance,  that  the  writer's  own  life  is  the  sole  or  principal 
theme,  and  second,  with  respect  to  literary  form,  that  the  book 
is  a  fairly  continuous  unified  history.  The  Life  of  Franklin, 
the  ^Memoirs  of  Gibbon,  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau,  the  Life 
of  Benvenuto  Cellini, —  these  and  such  as  these  are  well-under- 
stood examples  of  autobiography. 


II 

It  is  a  form  of  writing  which  seems  to  have  been  utterly  unknown 
in  the  classical  period  of  Greek  literature,  and  even  in  later  Greek 
until  about  the  time  of  the  Christian  era.'  It  is,  however,  an  old 
native  form  of  Latin  literature.^     Tacitus  tells  us  the  writing  of 

^  Suidas  mentions  the  book  of  Nicho-  -  On  Roman   autobiographies  gener- 

las  of  Damascus  (  who  lived  37-4  B,  C.  ally  consult  the  old  but  valuable  mono- 

in  the  palace  of  the  Jewish  king  Herod) ;  graph  of  Suringar  :   De  Romanis  Auto- 

r=pi  TOO  Io'Vjo  ,3'>jo  v.al  xr^c  saoTO'j  7.7007?^ r,  biographis,    Leyden     1846.       For    the 

and  the   book  of    Libanius   of  Antioch  period   of   the    Empire   consult    Peter, 

(314-393  A.  D.)  ;  X070C  Tuspl  Tf^?  iaoro'j  Geschichtliche      Litteratur     iiber     die 

fV/r^r.  romische  Kaiserzeit,  i  372-377. 

See      Bergk,     Griech.    Litteraturge- 
schichte,  i  291,  Berlin  1872. 

2 


autobiographies  was  antiquitus  usitatum,^  common  in  the  time  of 
the  Republic,  and  that  'many  thought  the  writing  of  their  own 
lives  was  a  mark  of  conscious  rectitude  rather  than  of  arro- 
gance/ "  These  earliest  books  are  lost,  though  some  mention  of 
them  remains.  Aemilius  Scaurus,  twice  consul  (113  and  107 
B.  C.)  and  subsequently  censor  and  princeps  senatus,  wrote  the 
story  of  his  stormy  life  in  three  books  as  a  justification  of  his  po- 
litical conduct.  Cicero  speaks  well,^  even  too  well,  of  the  re- 
liability and  personal  dignity  of  the  writer,  but  hints  that  his 
style  lacked  finish.'^  As  for  his  three  books,  they  are  sane  utiles; 
quos  nemo  legit.^  His  younger  contemporary  Rutilius  Rufus 
was  more  accomplished.  He  was  a  Stoic  philosopher,  a  jurist, 
a  respectable  orator  and  the  writer  of  a  history  of  Rome  in  Greek. 
His  honesty  as  a  public  officer  brought  on  him  the  hatred  of  the 
venal  publicans  whose  extortions  he  had  exposed.  Unjustly 
banished  in  92  B.  C,  he  retired  to  Smyrna  where  he  wrote  an  ac- 
count of  his  public  life.*^  It  is  a  pity  his  book  is  lost,  for  although 
it  was  probably  little  else  than  a  vindication  of  his  acts,  he  de- 
served such  vindication.  It  was  doubtless  better  written  than 
the  memoirs  of  Scaurus  and  was  carefully  truthful  in  spirit,  as 
Plutarch's  characterization  (rpLXa/.r^Or^j;  avr^p)"  may  well  lead  us 
to  believe.  There  is  a  third  autobiography  belonging  to  this 
time,  written  by  Quintus  Lutatius  Catulus,  consul  in  102  B.  C. 
He  commanded  one  army  and  Marius  the  other  in  the  campaign 
against  the  Cimbri,  and  soon  after  fell  a  victim  to  the  Marian 
proscription.      His  style,  as  Cicero  testifies  in  one  of  those  un- 


1  Tacitus:  Agricola  I  ''Cicero:  Brutus  II2,trcs  ad  L.  Fu- 

-  Tacitus :  Agricola  I  fidium   libri    scripti    de  vita  ipsius  sane 

•'Cicero:  Brutus  III  and  112  utiles;  quos  nemo  legit. 

■^Cicero:    De  Oratore  i  49»  pruden-  ''Charisius:  Gramm.  Lat.  p.  139 

tia  tamen  rerum  magnarum  magis  quam  '  Plutarch:    Marius  28,  co?  '^^    I'oot'!- 

arte  dicendi  nititur.  Xtoc  '.axopsf  xa  [j.£v  7.XXa  rciXaXifir^c  a.Yf^[j. 

3 


translatable  phrases  that  attach  moral  goodness  to  fine  diction, 
embodied  the  incorrupta  Latini  sermonis  integritas  and,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  same  critic,  was  fit  to  be  compared  with  the 
pleasant  manner  of  Xenophon.^ 

Passing  to  the  time  of  the  civil  wars,  we  encounter  the  me- 
moirs of  the  dictator  Sulla  (138-78  B.  C.)  written  at  Naples 
after  his  retirement  from  public  life."'  His  ambitious  account 
had  already  filled  twenty-two  books,  when  it  was  suddenly 
broken  off  by  his  death.  It  was  completed  by  his  freedman, 
Cornelius  Epicadus.  The  object  of  these  commentaries,  as 
they  were  styled  later, "^  was  to  exhibit  the  whole  of  Sulla's 
career.  Roman  superbia,  selfish  and  cruel,  and  glorification  of 
the  author  as  a  favorite  of  the  gods  compose  the  tone  of  the 
narrative.  Scraps  of  the  memoirs  remain,  but  otherwise  the 
work  is  lost,  save  as  Plutarch  has  drawn  on  it  for  his  lives  of 
Marius  and  Sulla.  It  is  a  great  loss,  in  spite  of  its  distorted 
presentations,  inasmuch  as  we  so  often  get  at  the  truth  through 
a  writer's  very  perversions.  Still  it  is  not  so  much  as  auto- 
biography, but  as  material  for  history  we  regret  its  destruction. 
We  can  more  easily  spare  the  author's  self-painted  idealized 
portrait  than  those  vigorous  sketches  of  the  dreadful  scenes  in 
which  he  figured. 

^Cicero:  Brutus  132  wrote   his   book   in    Greek?     It  should 

-Plutarch:  Lucullus  I,  Sulla4  and  37  be  remembered  that  Plutarch  also  calls 

"^  The  original  name  is  res  gestae  or  the  memoirs  ra?  aoroo  Trpd^sii;  (Lucul- 

rerum  gcstarum  libri.    Niese  (p.  127  lus  I),  which  points  plainly  to  an  origi- 

in  iii  5  of   Iwan  von   Miiller's   Hand-  nal  res  gestae.    There  is  no  reason  to 

buch)    says   of    Sulla:    *  Er   hat    Auf-  doubt  Sulla  wrote  in  Latin.     Whether 

zeichnungen    in    griechischer    Sprache  there  was  a  Greek  version,  is  another 

{')7:o[XYf]<mz'y.)    hinterlassen,  von    denen  matter,  though  there  is  no  evidence  for 

in    den    Biographien    Plutarch's    noch  it.     All  the  Latin  writers,  who  quote  it, 

Reste  erhalten  sind.'     Is  there  any  au-  quote  literally  and  in  Latin.     But  I  find 

thority,    except  the    name  ^"Ojj-VYjjj.aTa  nothing    in    Plutarch's  references   that 

given  by  Plutarch,  for  supposing  Sulla  looks  like  an  exact  quotation. 

4 


The  learned  Varro  wrote  de  vita  sua  in  three  books. ^  As 
for  Cicero,  nothing  could  keep  him  from  autobiography.  In 
his  letter,  askind  Lucceius  to  write  up  his  deeds,  he  says  :  *  If 
you  will  not  consent,  I  shall  perhaps  be  fo'rced  to  do  what  some 
censure:  I  shall  write  about  myself.'^  Little  forcing  was  needed. 
In  the  year  60  he  finished  a  commentary  in  Greek  on  his  con- 
sulship and  informed  Atticus  he  meant  to  prepare  a  Latin  ver- 
sion.^ He  asked  Atticus  to  see  that  transcripts  were  placed  in 
Athens  and  other  Greek  cities,  and  bored  Caesar^  and  Pom- 
pey^  by  sending  each  a  copy.  He  also  wrote  in  Latin  a  taste- 
less ^oema  on  the  same  theme  and  followed  this  effusion  with 
an  epic  in  three  books,  ©c  Temporihus  Suis,^  ^  O  that  he  had 
been  more  modest  in  verse  !  *  is  the  sigh  of  his  wise  critic 
Quintilian.' 

We  need  not  linger  here  over  the  familiar  and  incomparable 
Commentaries  of  Julius  Caesar.  As  the  two  thousandth  anni- 
versary of  his  birth  approaches,  the  ^  Gallic  War,'  through  which 
a  firsthand  knowledge  of  his  character  comes  to  most  of  us, 
still  remains  the  one  classical  book  in  most  general  use.  And 
it  matches  the  man.  *  He  wrote,'  says  Quintilian,  Mn  the  way 
he  fought.'*^  The  book  is  not  properly  an  autobiography,  but 
rather  memoires  pour  servir,  a  well  digested  series  of  notes  re- 
cording year  by  year  the  conquest  of  Gaul.  The  great  captain 
strictly  refrains  from  expatiating  on  his  motives  or  making  a 
show  of  his  behavior.  Yet  he  did  not  really  conceal  himself, 
and  his  Commentaries  are  autobiographical,  not  in  the  way  of 

1  Peter:     Historicorum    Romanorum  '' Suringar :     De   Romanis  Autobiog- 

Fragmenta,  Ed.  1883,  p.  236  raphis,  pp.  24,  25-     See    also   Teuffel- 

-  Ad  Fam.  v  12  Schwabe,  190,  3,  and  Schanz  (2nd  Ed. 

^  Ad  Atticum  i  19,  20  1898)  in  Iwan  von  Muller's  Handbuch, 

^  Ad  Quint,  fr.  ii  1 65  viii  I,  394. 

5  Ad  Fam.  V  7,  3-   Peter :    Hist.  Rom.  "  Inst.  Or.  xi  I,  24 

Frag.  p.  209,  6.  *"  Inst.  Or.  x  I,  1 14 


an  assertion,  but  by  constant  implication.     He  is  always  behind 
the  lines. 


Ill 


A  new  series  begins  with  Augustus,  —  the  autobiographies 
of  Emperors.^  About  the  middle  of  his  reign  he  composed 
memoirs  in  thirteen  books/-  probably  entitled  Commentaries^ 
and  dedicated  the  work  to  Maecenas  and  Agrippa.^  Like  other 
performances  of  its  author,  it  served  as  an  example  for  his 
successors.  It  was  an  example  likely  to  find  favor  in  the  eyes 
of  self-aggrandizing  rulers,  unless,  as  too  often  happened,  they 
were  stolidly  indifferent  to  all  forms  of  literature,  except  the 
easily  obtained  panegyrics  of  a  servile  court. 

We  may  notice  briefly  these  imperial  Lives.  Tiberius  de- 
scribed his  career  in  short  sketchy  commentaries  ^  full  of  false 
coloring,  and  we  are  assured  by  Suetonius  they  were  almost  the 
only  books  Domitian  cared  to  read.^     Claudius,  with  some  ele- 


^  Under  the  Empire  there  was  very 
little  autobiography  outside  the  impe- 
rial family.  Peter  observes:  'Bald 
aber  musste  man  sich  uberzeugen,  dass 
fur  autobiographische  Darstellungen 
ausserhalb  des  Hofes  kein  Platz  mehr 
^elassen  sei,  und  wenn  auch  einzelne 
Verfasser  in  der  Behandlung  der  Zeit- 
geschichte  ihre  Person  nicht  vergessen 
haben  werden,  die  Autobiographie  be- 
schrankt  sich  seit  Tiberius  auf  den 
Hof.'  Geschichtliche  Litteratur  iiber 
die  romische  Kaiserzeit,  ii  202,  Leipzig 
1897.      Consult  also  ii  372-377. 

-It  was  after  9  B.C.  Suetonius: 
Augustus  85,  aliqua  de  vita   sua  quam 


tredecim  libris,  Cantabrico  tenus  bello 
nee  ultra,  composuit. 

^  Plutarch :  comp.  Demosth.  cum 
Cic.  3,  3v  Toi?  irf>6g  'A  YfxTCTtav  y.al  MatXTj- 
vav  oTTOjJ.vYj'j.ao'.v.  Agrippa  wrote  an  au- 
tobiography. See  Philarg.  ad  Verg. 
georg.  ii  1 62,  Agrippa  in  secundo  vitae 
suae  dicit. 

^Suetonius:  Tiberius  67,  commen- 
tario  quern  de  vita  sua  summatim  bre- 
viterque  composuit.  See  Teuffel- 
Schwabe,  275- 

-'Suetonius:  Domitianus  20,  praeter 
commentarios  et  acta  Tiberii  Caesaris 
nihil  lectitabat. 


dance  of  manner,  wrote  eight  insipid  books  on  his  own  life.-  His 
Empress, the  infamous  Agrippina  (15-59  A.D.),  mother  of  Nero, 
also  wrote  memoirs  which,  unluckily  for  her,  fell  into  the  hands 
of  Tacitus."-  In  the  next  generation  we  meet  with  memoirs  by 
Vespasian.^  Passing  down  the  imperial  line  we  can  hardly  help 
pausing  before  the  grand  figure  of  Trajan.  What  a  boon  to  his- 
tory would  the  Life  of  such  a  ruler  have  been!  Perhaps  he  dic- 
tated the  account  of  his  Dacian  campaigns,  as  Priscian  seems  to 
indicate  by  a  citation,"^  but,  apart  from  this,  even  the  memory  of 
anything  resembling  memoirs  of  Trajan  has  perished.  His 
majestic  Column  in  Rome  and  more  majestic  Arch  at  Bene- 
ventum,  each  containing  his  portrait,  remain  to  remind  us  of  him 
and  to  remind  us  further,  in  words  adapted  from  Mommsen, 
that  for  his  beneficent  reign  we  possess  little  more  than  *  chis- 
eled picture-books,  from  which  too  often  the  text  is  missing.'^ 
Trajan's  immediate  successor,  the  versatile  Hadrian,  wrote  his 
own  life  in  a  spirit  of  genial  vanity.  We  learn  from  Spartianus 
that  he  was  careful  to  remind  his  readers  of  the  antiquity  of  his 
family,  tracing  it  from  the  time  of  the  Scipios,  and  to  explain  that 
his  free  use  of  wine  was  in  consequence  of  the  example  of  Tra- 
jan.""  To  avoid  the  appearance  of  self-esteem  and  thus  gain 
greater  credence  for  the  story  of  his  life,  he  commanded  his 

^Suetonius:   Claudius  41,  composuit  ''Josephus:   Vita  65,  p.  340,    18  bk., 

de  vita  sua  viii  volumina  magis  inepte  sv   zolq    O^jBQizc/.a'.avob   toO    aotoxpdiofyot; 

quam    ineleganter.     The    statement  in  oTiopf^'iaa'.v  ootco  YSYpaTTxa'.. 

the  third  edition  of  Christ's  Griechische  ^^  Priscianus  :    Gramm.    Lat.    ii    205, 

Litteraturgeschichte  (p.  617)   that  Ca-  6,  Traianus  in  I  Dacicorum  :  inde  Ber- 

ligula  wrote  an   autobiography  is  erro-  zobim,  deinde  Aizi  processimus. 

neous.     It  is  a  slip  for  Claudius.     See  ^  Mommsen:    Romische  Geschichte, 

Peter,    Hist.    Rom.   Frag.    p.   294,    and  v    204,    Ed.    1885.      *  Bin   gemeisseltes 

Teuffel-Schwabe,  286.  Bilderbuch    der   dakischen    Kriege,  zu 

-Tacitus:   Ann.  iv  53,   id   ego    .    .    .  welchem     uns    fast    iiberall     der    Text 

repperi     in     commentariis     Agrippinae  fehlt.' 

filiae.  '^Spartianus:    Hadrianus  i  I  and  iii  3 

7 


learned  freedmen  to  publish  it  under  their  names,  and  the  book 
passed  for  a  short  time  as  the  work  of  Phle^on.^ 

About  170  Marcus  Aurelius  wrote  his  calmly  complacent 
Meditations^  which,  though  Roman  in  origin,  belong  to  Greek 
literature.  They  spring  from  autobiographical  suggestions,  but 
do  not  compose  an  autobiography.  Amid  the  general  literary 
decline  with  which  the  third  century  opens,  Septimius  Severus 
( 193-2  II)*  wrote  the  history  of  his  public  and  private  life  with 
fidelity  to  truth,'  as  Spartianus  judges,  adding  naively  that  Sev- 
erus *  excused  only  his  vice  of  cruelty  '  and  *kept  quiet  about  his 
wife.'"  The  contemporary  historian  Dio  Cassius,  or  Cassius 
Dio  (as  I  believe  we  are  now  to  call  him),  did  not  take  so  favor- 
able a  view.  *  I  relate  things,'  he  quietly  observes,  *not  as  Sev- 
erus wrote  them,  but  as  they  really  happened.'^  One  more  long 
step  and  we  are  at  the  opening  of  the  fourth  century,  where  with 
passing  mention  of  the  supposed  memoirs  of  Constantine^  (323- 
337),  first  Christian  Emperor,  this  hurried  recital  of  ancient 
Roman  autobiographies  may  fitly  close. 

Some  fragments  of  them  remain,  some  mention  by  historians 
and  some  portions  worked  over  and  incorporated  in  other  writers. 
Otherwise  they  have  perished,  unless  the  Commentaries  of  Julius 
Caesar  are  an  exception.  They  are  all  of  one  type,  objective 
narratives  dealing  with  the  scenes  and  events  in  which  their  au- 
thors mingled.  They  are  composed  with  one  purpose,  avowed 
or  concealed,  the  commendation  of  the  writer  to  others.  They 
are  natural  utterances  of  Roman  pride,  ranging  all  the  way  from 

^  Spartianus:   Hadrianus  xvi  I  ^  Dio  :  75,  7,  Ki'(o>  '{o.fj  00/  oaa  6  Xsof^- 

-  Spartianus :     Severus    xviii  6,    vi-  po?  i'Ypa'l^sv,  aXX' oaa  aXrjOwc  s'csvsto. 

tarn  suam  privatam   publicamque   ipse  ^  Lydus :    De     Magistr.     ii    30,    taic 

composuit  ad  fidem,  solum  tantum  vi-  otaXs^sat  KojyaTavTivoD.  7.?   7.016^  olx.£'lo[. 

tium  crudelitatis  excusans.     iii  2,  uxo-  'f  wv-(j  7pa']^ac  a:roXsXo'.7r3v. 

rem  .   .   .   de  qua  tacuit  in  historia  vitae 

privatae. 

8 


dignified  self-vindication  to  vanity.  Autobiography,  as  well  as 
satire,  should  be  credited  to  the  Romans  as  their  own  indepen- 
dent invention. 


IV 

The  appearance  of  Augustine's  Confessions  in  399  or  400^ 
dates  the  entrance  of  a  new  kind  of  autobiography  into  Latin 
literature, —  the  autobiography  of  introspection,  the  self-regis- 
tered record  of  the  development  of  a  human  soul.  It  is  lit- 
erally a  'confession'  of  all  that  was  in  his  mind  and  heart,  an 
acknowledgment  which  does  not  omit  the  vile  in  conduct,  the 
erroneous  in  thinking  or  the  base  in  motive.  Without  reserve 
and  yet  not  without  shame,  it  is  above  all  free  from  vanity, 
excuse  or  pride.  It  is,  moreover,  the  history  of  a  great  spirit 
written  with  the  mastery  of  genius.  It  is  a  book  without  an  an- 
cestor, and  with  no  successor  for  almost  a  thousand  years.  From 
beginning  to  end  it  quivers  with  life,  passion  and  power.  There  is 
a  look  of  intense  reality  on  every  page,  even  at  the  times  when 
Augustine  is  turning  aside  to  view  the  abstract  world-questions 
which  so  often  thrust  themselves  into  his  life.  As  Adolf  Har- 
nack  has  acutely  observed,  the  Confessions  never  degenerate 
into  *  psychological  discussions  on  the  human  understanding,  will 
and  emotions,  or  abstract  researches  on  the  soul,  or  superficial 
reasoning  and  moralizing  self-conternplation  as  in  the  Medita- 
tions of  Marcus  Aurelius,'  but  steadily  present  *a  definite  por- 
trait  of  one   man.'-      As  we  watch   the   workings  of  his  spirit, 

1  This  date  is  generally  accepted,  for  -  Augustin's  Confessionen,  ein  Vor- 

the  Confessions  were  almost  certainly  trag    von    Dr.    Adolf     Harnack,    p.    8, 

published    within    the    year    preceding  Giessen  1888.     Harnack's  penetrating 

Augustine's   treatise    Contra    Faustum  critique    should    be    read    by    all    who 

Manichaeum.  would  understand  the  place  of  the  Con- 

9 


even  in  its  tumults  of  rhetoric,  we  are  constantly  at  a  loss  to 
decide  what  it  is  enchants  us  most, —  the  sweep  of  his  restless 
observation,  the  convincing  eloquence,  or  the  vivid  displays  of 
reflection  and  imagination.  How  many  of  its  phrases  are 
memorable!  much  as  they  lose  by  translation.  How  many 
have  entered  into  the  commonplace  of  letters  and  philosophy! 
^  None  can  be  compelled  against  his  will,'^  ^The  things  that 
are,  are  good,'^  *The  unlearned  rise  and  seize  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,'"'  'What  is  enough  for  safety  is  too  little  for  delight,'^ 
^To  rise  is  one  thing,  not  to  fall  another,''  *God  alone  rules 
without  pride, ""  '  Happy  he  who  loves  Thee,  his  friend  in  Thee, 
and  his  enemy  for  Thee,'" — these  are  instances  from  the  Con- 
fessions. From  his  lesser  touches  of  description  we  may  pick 
out  'the  troubled  flow  of  time,'^  'the  great  hall  of  memory,'^ 
Uhe  rule  of  perfection,' ^^  'the  flood  of  custom,'"  'a  dead  life,'^- 
and  his  styling  temperance  in  meats  'the  bridle  of  the  throat,' ^^ 
ignorance  'the  mother  of  amazement,'^*  mortal  man  as  'time 
devouring  and  by  time  devoured,'^'  his  body  'this  earth  I  carry 
about,' ^-  and  light  'the  queen  of  colors.'^'    And  these  are  but 


fcssions  as  a  literary  art  work  and 
classic  of  philosophy,  though  his  sym- 
pathy with  its  meaning  as  a  book  of 
personal  religion,  while  generous,  is  not 
complete. 

^  non  cogeris  invitus  ad  aliquid,  vii  4 
-quamdiu  sunt,  bona  sunt,  vii  12 
''  surgunt  indocti   et   caelum   rapiunt, 
viii  8 

^  quod    saluti    satis    est,   delectationi 
parum  est,  x  31 

^  aliud  est  cito  surgere,  aliud  est  non 
cadere,  x  35 

''  solus  sine  typho  dominaris,  x  36 


'  beatus  qui  amat  te,  et  amicum  in  te, 
et  inimicum  propter  te,  iv  9 

"^  fluxum  saeculorum  turbulentum,  ix  8 

'■'  aula  ingenti  memoriae,  x  8 

^"  regula  perfectionis,  iii  9 

^^  flumen  moris  humani,  i  I6 

^~  vitam  mortuam,  v  8 

^^  freni  gutturis,  x  31 

^^  ignorantia  mater  admirationis,  xiii 
21 

' '  devorans  tempora  et  devoratus 
temporibus,  ix  4 

^''  haec  terra  quam  porto,  xii  2 

''  regina  colorum  lux  est,  x  34 


10 


a  few  out  of  hundreds  more^  to  be  found  in  the  little  book  that  has 
been  the  favorite  of  all  his  writings  from  his  own  day  until  now.^ 

Is  it  not  natural  to  suppose  such  a  book  would  be  interesting? 
Interesting  indeed  it  has  been  in  its  influence  on  human  thought 
and  its  fascination  for  a  long  series  of  readers,  not  the  least  of 
whom  was  Petrarch.  *  Small  in  size ! '  he  exclaims  of  his  copy, 
'but  of  infinite  charm/ ^  Still  to  read  it  in  English  is  not  so 
very  interesting.  The  unchecked  rhetoric,  the  reiterated  calls 
on  God,  varied  and  wearisome,  the  shrewd  curiosity  in  hunting 
down  subtleties  to  their  last  hiding  places,  the  streaks  of  inane 
allegorizing,  and  sometimes  the  violent  bursts  of  feeling, —  these 
are  the  things  that  frighten  away  readers  and  prevent  them  from 
reaching  the  real  delights  of  the  book.  Then  he  is  so  exuber- 
ant.     For  if  Cicero's  pen  was  full,  Augustine's  is  fuller. 

But  read  what  he  wrote,  free  from  the  disenchantment  of  trans- 
lation, and  the  effect  is  different.      The  ineptitudes  and  infelici- 


^  It  may  not  be  superfluous  to  cite  in 
a  note  these  additional  examples:  ve- 
pres  libidinum,  'the  brambles  of  lust' 
ii  3;  eamus  faciamus,  et  pudet 
non  esse  impudentem,  the  formula 
of  eager  boyish  mischief  in  ii9  ;  non  va- 
cant tempora,  *  time  is  never  empty 
iv  8 ;  arborum  volatica  folia, 'the 
fluttering  leaves  of  trees'  vii  6 ;  the  mov- 
ing plea  medicus  es,  aeger  sum; 
misericors  es,  miser  sum  x  28; 
the  surprised  recognition  in  et  ecce 
intus  eras,  et  ego  foris,  et  ibi  te 
quaerebam  x  27;  the  frequent  and 
ev<;r-memorable  da  quod  iubes  et 
iube  quod  vis  x  29;  pedissequa 
periculosa  iocunditas,  'pleasure  is 
a  dangerous  waiting-maid' X  31  ;  con- 
suetudinis    sarcina,    'the    pack    of 


habit'  X  40;  caro  mihi  valent  stil- 
lae  te mporum,  '  precious  to  me  are 
the  drops  of  time '  xi  2 ;  the  settled 
peace  after  the  storm  in  the  inimitable 
and  untranslatable  evitando  vivit 
anima  quae  adpetendo  moritur 
xiii  21  ;  the  somewhat  gross  but  graphic 
elinxi  stillam  dulcedinis  ex  tua 
veritate,  'I  licked  a  drop  of  sweet- 
ness from  thy  truth '  xiii  30,  and  the 
poetically  tender  lunam  et  Stellas 
consolari   noctem  xiii  32. 

2  Quid  meorum  opusculorum  fre- 
quentius  et  delectabilius  innotescere 
potuit,  quam  libri  confessionum  mea- 
rum?  Augustine,  De  Dono  Persever- 
antiae,  cap.  xx. 

■'  Epp.  Fam.  iv  I 


II 


ties  soon  shrink  and  the  central  power  of  the  book  appears.  What 
writer,  and  particularly  what  old  writer,  is  ever  heard  to  the  best 
advantage  except  in  his  own  words  ?  But  thus  read,  even  the  less 
attractive  things  assume  a  place  and  propriety  of  their  own, 
though  they  figure,  in  Shakspeare's  phrase,  merely  as 

'  furrow  weeds, 
Darnel  and  many  an  idle  flower  that  grows 
Mid  the  sustaining  corn.'^ 

Augustine  was  born  in  354.  His  Confessions  recount  the  ear- 
lier part  of  his  life,  ending  with  his  conversion  to  Christianity 
and  the  death  of  his  mother  Monnica  in  his  thirty-third  year. 
They  consist  of  thirteen  books,  the  first  ten  being  his  autobiog- 
raphy and  the  other  three  an  appendix  on  the  biblical  account  of 
Creation.  The  first  book  deals  with  his  infancy  and  boyhood 
through  his  fifteenth  year,  the  next  five  with  his  youth  to  his 
thirtieth  year,  the  next  three  with  his  young  manhood  to  his 
thirty-third  year,  and  the  tenth  is  a  closing  meditation  in  retro- 
spect. Unlike  some  of  the  older  Roman  autobiographies  and 
many  of  his  own  writings,  this  work  is  not  addressed  or  dedicated 
to  any  of  bis  fellow  men.  His  Confessions  are  not  addressed  or 
dedicated  in  the  literary  sense  at  all,  but  are  made  in  simplicity 
to  God.  '  What  have  I  to  do  with  men,'  he  asks,  *  that  they 
should  hear  my  confessions,  as  though  they  could  heal  my  infirm- 
ities? Man  is  curious  about  the  life  of  his  fellow;  careless  about 
correcting  his  own.  Why  should  they  wish  to  hear  from  me 
what  I  am,  when  they  are  unwilling  to  hear  from  Thee  what  they 
are  ?  And  when  they  hear  from  me  about  myself,  from  what 
source  can  they  learn  whether  I  speak  the  truth?  .  .  .  But  if 
they  will  only  hear  Thee  about  themselves,  they  will  never  be 
able  to  say.  The  Lord  lies.'"-    So  his  sole  concern  is  to  learn  what 

^  King  Lear,  iv  4  -'Confessions  x  3 

12 


he  is  in  the  eyes  of  his  Maker,  who  alone  understands  him.  It 
would  be  a  misrepresentation  to  say  this  was  the  unvarying  atti- 
tude of  Augustine.  It  is  his  final  attitude,  attained  through  a 
fierce  struggle,  a  battle  to  blood.  Through  that  battle  his  moral 
and  intellectual  natures  marched  together,  step  by  step,  all  the 
way.  His  story  is  so  full  of  variety  I  despair  of  relating  it.  It  is 
so  tempestuous  in  feeling,  lively  in  fancy,  affluent  in  thought, — 
ingenuous  when  most  subtle,  childlike  when  most  mature, — and 
so  swift  in  its  changes  of  light  and  shadow,  that  the  author's  own 
account  must  ever  remain  the  only  satisfying  one. 

The  son  of  a  hot-blooded,  vulgar  and  somewhat  intemperate 
pagan  father,  Patricius,  and  of  a  Christian  mother,  Monnica,  the 
angel  of  his  life,  he  embodies  the  most  conflicting  impulses. 
His  story  records  them  with  unsparing  frankness.  Of  his  in- 
fancy he  remembered  nothing,^  though  he  speculates  much  about 
it.  He  is  a  little  puzzled  to  explain  how,  though  his  infancy 
died  long  ago,  he  is  still  alive."  Then  he  came  from  infancy  to 
boyhood.  •  Or  did  boyhood  rather  come  to  him  ?  he  inquires. 
Which  came  to  the  other  ?  And  what  became  of  his  infancy  ? 
Did  it  cease  to  be  ?  He  cannot  solve  his  curious  riddle.^^  With- 
out getting  into  a  *  divine  despair'  about  it,  like  Tennyson,  his 
thought  of  the  vanished  past  is  not  unlike  that  poet's  line: 

'O  Death  in  Life!   the  days  that  are  no  more!''* 

His  boyhood  he  remembers  well.  The  first  prayers  he  framed 
for  himself  were  that  he  might  not  be  whipped  at  school.  He 
would  not  read  and  write  as  much  as  his  teachers  prescribed, 

^  Conf.  i  6,  ista  mea  non  memini.  ipsa  in  me  venit,  et  successit  infantiae? 

-  Conf,  i  6,  et  ecce  infantia  mea  olim  nee    discessit   ilia;    quo  enim  abiit?   et 

mortua  est,  et  ego  vivo.  tamen  iam  non  erat. 

■'  Conf.    i    8,   nonne   ab    infantia    hue  ^  Princess,  iv. 
pergens,  veni  in  pueritiam ;  vel  potius 

13 


as  he  preferred  to  play  ball.'  It  seemed  to  him  unjust  his  elders 
should  call  their  chosen  pursuits  ^business,'  and  not  be  pun- 
ished, if  he  was  to  be  whipped  for  following  his  favorite  occu- 
pation. Still  he  admits  that  for  tantillus  puer  he  was  et  tantus 
peccatorr 

He  does  not  know  why  he  hated  Greek  and  loved  Latin, 
unless  it  was  because  Greek  was  a  foreign  language.  He  used 
to  weep  over  the  story  of  Dido,  but  seems  to  have  been  bored 
by  the  character  of  Aeneas  and  to  have  doubted  whether  he 
ever  came  to  Carthage  anyway,  though  he  is  afraid  to  put  this 
question  to  his  teacher.^'  Ages  later,  was  it  not  the  historian 
Gibbon,  so  deeply  read  in  the  classics,  who  wrote  in  like  spirit 
in  his  Memoirs,  *  I  know  not  how,  from  some  fault  in  the  author, 
the  translator,  or  the  reader,  the  pious  Aeneas  did  not  so  forci- 
bly seize  on  my  imagination.''^  How  Augustine  hated  the  ad- 
dition table!  learned  in  a  singsong  way;  unam  et  unum  duo^ 
duo  et  duo  quattuor^  odiosa  cantio.^  Studying  Homer  was  bitter, 
though  he  grants  the  poet  is  dulcissime  vanusS'  But  the  mor- 
als of  the  gods  in  Homer,  and  in  Terence  too,  disgusted  him." 
His  declamations  from  Virgil  in  school  won  him  great  applause^ 
but  'was  it  not  all  wind  and  smoke?'' 

In  his  sixteenth  year  his  studies  were  interrupted  by  a  long 
vacation.  It  was  at  this  time,  as  he  says,  '  the  brambles  of 
lust'^  first  struck  root  in  his  life.  His  mother's  distress  and 
warnings  he  set  down  as  womanish  nonsense.'*  So  he  began 
to  'walk  the  way  of   the    streets  of  Babylon  and  to  roll  m  its 

^  Conf.  i  9r  ludebam  pila  puer,  et   eo           ''Conf.  i  13 

ludo    impediebar,   quo  minus  celeriter           '' Conf.  i  14 

discerem  litteras.  '' Conf.  i  17 

-Conf.  i  12  "^Conf.  ii  3r  veprcs  libidinum. 

•'  Conf.  i  13  ''Conf.  ii  3?  monitus  muliebres. 

^  Gibbon:    Memoirs  of  My  Life  and 
Writings,  ch.  v 

14 


mire  as  in  spices  and  precious  ointments/^  without  let  and 
without  shame.  He  indulged  in  petty  thieving,  not  from  want, 
but  from  mere  mischief.^  The  story  of  his  plundering  a  neigh- 
bor's pear  tree  one  stormy  night  and  throwing  the  pears  to  the 
pigs  is  vividly  told.^  At  seventeen  he  went  to  Carthage  to  at- 
tend the  schools  of  rhetoric  and  philosophy.  There  he  advanced 
swiftly  in  a  career  of  sensuality,^  revelling  especially  in  the  grosser 
indecencies  of  the  theatres,  theatres  among  the  vilest  the  world 
has  known.'^  One  day  he  happened  to  pick  up  a  copy  of 
Cicero's  Hortensius  and  read  its  eloquent  exhortation  to  the 
study  of  philosophy.  It  startled  him  to  think  of  his  own  con- 
duct, when  a  pagan  could  thus  speak  to  him  of  the  love  of 
truth  and  wisdom.  '  I  started  to  rise,'  he  cries  out,  *  that  I 
might  return  to  Thee.'''  In  spite  of  many  starts  to  rise,  fifteen 
years  were  yet  to  pass  before  he  forsook  his  immoral  habits. 

Would  Cicero  satisfy  him?  Perhaps  so,  for  of  his  mother's 
teachings  he  had  kept  nothing  in  practice  and  little  in  thought, 
as  he  writes,  beyond  the  memory  of  the  name  of  Christ.^  Still 
he  was  roused,  and  so  he  plunged  into  the  big  books  of  the 
philosophers.*^  From  his  nineteenth  to  twenty-eighth  year  he 
was  engrossed  with  the  prevalent  philosophy  known  as  Mani- 
chaeanism,  a  Persian  dualism  somewhat  grossly  imposed  on 
Christian  ideas,^  teaching  that  good  and  evil  are  coordinately 
necessary  and  eternal.  We  need  not  follow  him  through  its 
mazes. ^"^     He   mastered  it   but   remained   unsatisfied,   notwith- 

^  Conf.   ii   3?   iter   agebam    platcarum  ''  Conf.  iii  4,  surgere  coeperam,  ut  ad 

Babyloniae,  et  volutabar  in   caeno  eius  te  redirem. 

tamquam  in  cinnamis  et  unguentis  pre-  '  Conf.  iii  4 

tiosis.  i^  Conf.  iii  6 

-  Conf.  ii  4  and  9  ^  Conf,  v  6 

3  Conf,  ii  4  1'^  The   writings   of  John    Stuart    Mill 

*  Conf,  iii  I  are  not  free  from  a  Manichaean  tinge, 

■'Conf.  iii  2  In    his    Essays   on    Religion   (Essay  I, 

15 


standing  the  gorgeous  rhetoric  of  Faustus,  its  chief  expounder, 
who  was  unable  to  answer  Augustine's  searching  questions. 
'  Of  what  avail  for  my  thirst  was  the  most  graceful  profferer  of 
the  fairest  goblet  T^ 

Seeking  a  greater  career  he  left  Carthage  for  Rome,^  against 
the  anguished  entreaty  of  his  mother.  *  And  I  lied  to  my  mother, 
and  such  a  mother!  and  stole  away.  That  night  I  secretly  set 
forth,  while  she  remained  praying  in  tears.  The  breeze  blew 
and  filled  our  sails,  and  drew  the  shore  from  our  sight '  —  what  a 
Virgilian  touch  !  In  the  early  morning  hours,  as  she  watched  the 
receding  ship,  Monnica  insaniehat  dolore.^ 

At  Rome  he  fell  ill  with  a  severe  fever.^  On  recovering  he 
followed  for  a  while  the  skepticism  of  the  later  Academics,  *  who 
taught  me,*  he  writes,  '  that  we  ought  to  doubt  everything  and 
that  nothing  true  can  be  known.' '^  He  started  lecturing  on  rhet- 
oric in  his  house,  but  soon  found,  in  one  respect  at  least,  things 
were  done  otherwise  in  Rome  than  at  Carthage.  His  pupils,  as 
the  time  for  paying  their  fees  approached,  suddenly  withdrew 
and  attached  themselves  to  a  rival  school  in  rhetoric.  He  ad- 
mits he  hated  them  for  doing  it,  *  though  not  with  a  perfect 
hatred.'^ 

In  disappointment  he  withdrew  to  Milan  and  obtained  license 
from  the  prefect  of  that  city  to  lecture  on  rhetoric  there."    Am- 


*  Nature')   he  argues:     'The   only   ad-  reasoning.      Manichaeanism    is    speci- 

missible   moral    theory   of    creation    is  fically  named   in   connection    with    his 

that  the   Principle  of   Good  cannot  at  father's   religious  opinions   (Autobiog- 

once  and  altogether  subdue  the  powers  raphy,  p.  40,  New  York  1874). 

of  evil,  either  physical  or  moral;   could  ^  Conf.  v  6 

not  place  mankind  in  a  world  free  from  ^  Conf.  v  8 

the  necessity  of  an  incessant  struggle  ^  Conf.  v  9 

with  the  maleficent   powers,  or   make  ■^  Conf.  v  10 

them  always  victorious  in  that  struggle.'  ^  Conf.  v  12 

Essay   III  ('Theism')  contains   similar  "Conf.  v  13 

16 


brose,  bishop  of  Milan,  later  to  exert  so  much  influence  on  his 
life,  received  him  kindly,  and  Augustine  was  at  once  impressed 
by  his  marked  benignity.^  By  this  time  Monnica,  travelling 
alone  from  Carthage,  succeeded  in  joining  her  son,  and  was 
strangely  comforted  by  Augustine's  assurance  that  he  was  now 
neither  a  Manichaean  nor  a  Christian.-  He  was  still  unsatis- 
fied and  bent  on  attaining  certitude.  *  I  wished  to  be  as  certain 
of  things  unseen,'  he  writes,  *  as  I  was  certain  that  seven  and 
three  make  ten.'^"^  But  the  necessity  for  some  sort  of  belief  for 
the  affairs  of  life,  even  if  demonstrated  knowledge  were  out  of 
reach,  urged  him  on.  He  reasons  that  he  believes  he  is  the  son 
of  certain  parents,  a  thing  he  could  never  know  of  himself,  but 
must  learn  from  others.  The  arrest  of  his  intimate  friend  Aly- 
pius  on  an  apparently  well-founded  but  false  charge  of  theft, 
coupled  with  the  trial  and  subsequent  proof  that  another  was 
the  thief,  impressed  these  thoughts  on  Augustine  still  more. 
Alypius,  whom  he  believed,  was  in  his  eyes  just  as  worthy  of 
confidence  while  under  accusation,  with  the  evidence  seemingly 
against  him,  as  afterward  when  he  was  proved  to  be  innocent."^ 

Again  he  plunged  into  philosophy,  studying  the  riddle  of  the 
world  and  life,  and  why  evil  should  arise  if  all  is  the  work  of  a 
good  creator.  He  adopted  Neoplatonism,^  the  last  outcome  of 
Greek  philosophy.  It  was  old  Platonism  tinged  with  Hindu 
pantheism.  The  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Reason,  the  Word  or 
AoYG;;  whereby  the  Absolute  One  created  the  world,  and  all  the 
consequences  of  this  doctrine,  fascinated  him.''  Here  was  a  bet- 
ter answer  to  his  riddle,  but  not  enough  of  an  answer  to  satisfy 
his  heart.  He  read  on  and  on  in  the  books  of  Plotinus  and 
Porphyry.     How  much  he  found,  and  how  much  he  always  failed 

1  Conf.  V  13  ^  Conf.  vi  9  and  10 

-  Conf.  vi  I  •'•  Conf.  vii  9 

'^  Conf.  vi  4  "  Conf.  vii  9 

17 


to  find!  *  There  I  read  of  the  Adyoc  that  springs  from  God/  he 
writes,  '  but  that  he  was  made  man  and  dwelt  among  us,  I  did  not 
read  there/^    It  was  philosophy,  after  all,  and  not  religion. 

The  crisis  was  fast  approaching.  Speculating  on  the  helpful- 
ness and  yet  the  insufficiency  of  what  he  found,  he  was  driven  on, 
as  he  says,  to  think  *in  the  region  of  unlikeness'"  on  the  vast 
difference  between  the  ever- existing,  all-sufficient  Absolute 
One  and  himself.  It  is  here  he  first  breaks  down,  when  the 
vision  of  God,  as  the  only  ground  and  reason  for  all  other  being, 
dawns  upon  him.  'And  thou  didst  call  to  me  from  afar,  ''Most 
surely  I  am  that  I  am."  And  I  heard  as  one  hears  in  the  heart, 
and  straightway  could  doubt  no  more.'''  He  began  reading  St. 
Paul.  A  struggle  to  break  with  his  past  and  give  up  the  mis- 
tress, who  had  borne  him  a  son,  soon  follows,  and  the  ensuing 
misery  of  his  '  two  wills  '  distracts  him.^  His  habits  were  not  to 
be  so  easily  abandoned.  They  kept  muttering  behind  his  back, 
he  tells  us,  and  twitching  him  by  the  sleeve,  to  make  him  look 
at  them  again. ^ 

Torn  by  the  conflict  of  will  and  feeling,  he  shunned  his 
friends  and  sought  retirement.  Going  into  the  garden  one 
day,  he  flung  himself  on  the  ground  beneath  a  fig-tree  and 
called  out  in  his  distress,  'How  long,  how  long?  To-morrow 
and  to-morrow!  Why  not  now?  Why  not  at  this  hour  make 
an  end  of  my  vileness? '  '  And  lo  !  I  hear  a  voice  in  a  house  near 
by,  like  the  voice  of  a  boy,  or  perhaps  a  girl,  singing  and  say- 
ing over  and  over.  Take  it,  read  it;   take  it,  read   it.      At  once 


'  Conf.  vii  9  audivi   sicut    auditur   in    corde,  et    non 

-  Conf.  vii  10,  in  regione  dissimilitu-       erat  prorsus  unde  dubitarem. 
dinis.  "    ■*  Conf.  viii  6- 10 

•'Conf.  vii  10,  ct  clamasti  de  longin-  ^  Conf.   viii   II,  vcluti  dorso  mussi- 

quo:    Immo  vero  ego  sum  qui  sum.    et      tantes,  et  discedentcm  quasi  furtim  vel- 

licantes,  ut  respicerem. 
18 


I  began  to  think  intently  whether  boys  had  any  such  jingle  in 
their  games,  but  none  occurred  to  me.'^  Augustine  rose  and 
walked  to  where  he  had  left  the  book  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles. 
Opening  at  a  venture,  his  eyes  fell  on  the  startling  words,  *  Not 
in  rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and  wantonness, 
not  in  contention  and  rivalry,  but  put  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  make  no  provision  for  the  lusts  of  the  flesh.' ^  In  that  mo- 
ment his  old  life  died.  He  closed  the  book.  '  I  had  no  will,' 
he  writes,  *  nor  need  to  read  beyond.'  At  such  a  scene,  where 
silence  is  the  fittest  reverence,  will  words  from  a  modern  writer 
sound  too  strange  and  dissonant?  It  may  be  so.  But  if  not, 
what  late  echo  will  so  well  repeat  to  us  Augustine's  abasement  at 
that  instant  as  the  moving  lines  of  Dryden : 

'  My  thoughtless  youth  was  winged  with  vain  desires; 
My  manhood,  long  misled  by  wandering  fires, 
Followed  false  lights ;  and  when  their  glimpse  was  gone. 
My  pride  struck  out  new  sparkles  of  her  own. 
Such  was  I,  such  by  nature  still  I  am  ; 
Be  Thine  the  glory,  and  be  mine  the  shame.'  - 

And  why  not  hear  Augustine's  own  graphic  words  in  which  he 
tells  how  the  news  was  at  once  broken  to  Monnica, — *  Inde  ad 
matrem  ingredimur,  Indicamus^  gaudet.' ^  How  Roman!  How 
Christian! 

His  baptism  soon  follows,  and  within  a  short  time  he  starts  to 
return  with  his  mother  to  Carthage,  to  take  up  his  new  life  in  the 
scene  of  his  old  disgrace.  They  went  to  Ostia,  the  seaport  of 
Rome,  to  wait  for  a  ship,  and  rested  for  some  days.  It  was  there, 
as  they  stood  together  at  their  window  overlooking  an  enclosed 
garden,  those   sublimely   beautiful   conversations  occurred  be- 

'  Conf.  viii  12  ^  Conf.  viii  12 

-  Hind  and  Panther,  72 

19 


tween  mother  and  son,  scarcely  matched  in  all  literature.  '  So 
then  we  were  talking  alone  and  very  sweetly  (valde  dulciter),  for- 
getting the  past  and  reaching  forth  toward  that  which  is  before/^ 
English  cannot  reproduce  them  fairly. 

Monnica  was  not  to  see  Carthage  again.  In  a  few  days  she 
succumbed  to  fever  and  died.  It  is  in  this  part  of  the  Confes- 
sions^ the  ending  of  the  ninth  book,  we  are  irresistibly  carried 
away  by  its  pathos  and  beauty.  Who  can  translate  it?  Not  I. 
The  condition  of  Augustine  after  his  mother's  death  was  at  first 
one  of  tearless  stupefaction.  His  grief  turned  him  to  stone.  He 
records  the  funeral  as  though  he  were  an  unconcerned  spectator: 
Cum  ecce  corpus  elatum  est,  imus^  redimus  sine  lacrimis.'^  But 
the  misery  of  what  he  had  been  and  what  he  had  lost  soon 
surged  over  him  in  overwhelming  force,  and  the  tragic  strain  be- 
came too  great.  Death  or  some  easier  remedy  had  to  come. 
And  at  last  the  spell  of  his  agony  was  broken,  as  he  lay  wakeful 
on  his  couch,  by  the  magical  touch  of  that  most  musical  evening 
hymn  of  Ambrose: 

Deus  creator  omnium 
Polique  rector,  vestiens 
Diem  decoro  lumine, 
Noctem  sopora  gratia.^ 

The  swift  relief  of  tears  followed,  and  Augustine,  the  man  who 
had  lied  to  his  mother,  the  sensualist,  the  accomplished  rheto- 
rician, the  subtle  philosopher,  again  became  a  child. 

Such  in  palest  copy  is  the  picture  painted  from  life  in  Augus- 
tine's Confessions. 

'  Conf.    ix   10.    Colloquebamur    ergo  •' Conf.  ix  12,  *0  God,  Maker  of  all 

soli   valde   dulciter ;    et   praeterita   oh-  and  Ruler  of  the  World,  who  dost  robe 

liviscentes,  in    ea  quae   sunt  ante  ex-  the  day  with  beauteous  light   and  night 

tenti,  etc.  with  the  grace  of  sleep.' 


-'  Conf.  ix  12 


20 


V 

^Autobiography'  is  an  old-looking  word.  Yet  its  corresponding 
original  occurs  nowhere  in  the  whole  range  of  ancient  and  medi- 
eval Greek  and  Latin  known  to  us.^  It  is  of  modern  coinage,  and 
almost  certainly  of  English  coinage  about  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century.'-  Still  the  writing  of  autobiographies  in  both 
kinds,  the  objective  and  introspective, —  the  latter  sometimes 
styled  Confessions  in  imitation  of  Augustine, —  has  long  been 
practiced  in  English  and  other  modern  literatures.  But,  though 
fifteen  centuries  have  passed,  which  of  the  many  Confessions 
surpasses  the  first  one?  Coleridge's  ^Confessions  of  an  Inquiring 
Spirit/  *  confessions,'  he  says,  ^  of  one  who  is  neither  fair  nor 
saintly,'^  though  similar  in  tone,  is  too  slight  to  be  set  over  against 
Augustine.  De  Quincey's  ^  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium 
Eater^  is  more  important.  But  with  all  its  candor  and  dramatic 
power,  it  lacks  one  thing,  the  charm  of  entire  freedom  from  self- 
excuse.  And  what  of  the  greatest  of  modern  *  Confessions  '  ? 
the  astonishing  book  of  Rousseau, —  capricious,  brilliant,  un- 
sparing, sentimental  —  and  vain.  *  I  have  entered  on  a  perform- 
ance,' he  writes,  *  which  is  without  example,  whose  accomplish- 
ment will  have  no  imitator.  I  mean  to  present  my  fellow  mortals 
with  a  man  in  all  the  integrity  of  nature;  and  this  man  shall  be 
myself.'  *  Whenever  the  last  trumpet  shall  sound,  I  will  present 
myself  before  the  Sovereign  Judge  with  this  book  in  my  hand, 
and  say  aloud,  Thus  have  I  acted ;  these  were  my  thoughts ;  such 
was  I.     With  equal  freedom  and  veracity  have  I  related  what 

^  Even  *  biography '  is  comparatively  curs    in  the   ninth-century   lexicon    of 

modern.      Its  original   occurs   nowhere  Photius.      I  have  found  no  instance  of 

in  ancient  or  medieval  Latin,  so  far  as  (j'.OYp^- 'for. 

we  know,  though  biographus  is  found  -  See  the  Appendix  on  *  Autobiogra- 

in   the   medieval  period.     The  sole  re-  phy.' 

corded  instance   of   [j'.0'[  [jy/ficf.  first  oc-  '''In  *  Letter  I  ' 

21 


was  laudable  or  wicked;  I  have  concealed  no  crimes,  added  no 
virtues.  .  .  .  Such  as  I  was,  I  have  declared  myself;  sometimes 
vile  and  despicable,  at  others  virtuous,  generous  and  sublime. 
.  .  .  Assemble  round  Thy  throne  an  innumerable  throng  of  my 
fellow  mortals;  let  them  listen  to  my  confessions,  let  them  grieve 
at  my  indignities,  let  them  blush  at  my  miseries;  let  each  in  his 
turn  expose  with  equal  sincerity  at  the  foot  of  Thy  throne  the 
wanderings  of  his  heart,  and,  if  he  dare,  aver,  I  was  better  than 
that  man.'^ 

In  closing  this  lecture,  let  us  hear  by  way  of  contrast,  Augus- 
tine's letter  to  a  friend,  sent  with  a  copy  of  his  book.  *  Take 
then  the  books  of  my  Confessions  you  have  desired.  Therein 
behold  me,  lest  you  praise  me  beyond  what  I  am.  Therein 
believe  me,  and  not  others  about  me,  and  behold  what  I  was  in 
myself  and  of  myself.  If  aught  in  me  pleases  you,  then  with  me 
praise  Him  who  should  be  praised  concerning  me;  for  it  is  He 
who  made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves:  and  we  have  lost  ourselves^ 
but  He  who  made  us  has  remade  us.  And  when  you  find  me 
therein,  pray  for  me  that  I  fail  not,  but  persevere.' - 

'Rousseau's    Confessions;    opening  -  Ep.  231,  Dario  Comiti ;  Benedictine 

paragraphs.    Orson's  translation,  Lon-       edition, 
don  1897. 


22 


APPENDIX 

'AUTOBIOGRAPHY' 

See  the  article  *  Autobiographie'  in  the  ^ictionnaire  Univer- 
selle  of  Larousse.  No  instance  of  *  autobiography '  or  any  of 
its  kin  is  in  any  eighteenth-century  edition  of  Johnson's  dic- 
tionary, Murray's  New  English  dictionary  records  nothing 
earlier  than  a  quotation  from  Southey,  under  date  of  1809.  All 
instances  cited  in  other  dictionaries  I  have  been  able  to  consult 
are  later.  The  hyphenating  of  *  auto-biography/  ^auto-biog- 
rapher' and  the  like,  in  books  printed  about  1 840- 1 830  and 
even  as  late  as  1853  in  the  London  Quarterly  Review  (I  494 
sqq,),  seems  to  indicate  the  comparative  newness  of  these  com- 
pounds. 

Leigh  Hunt's  Autobiography  is  styled  so  in  the  opening 
sentence:  'The  circumstances  that  led  to  this  Autobiography 
will  transpire  in  the  course  of  it.'  De  Quincey,  writing  in  1853, 
divided  his  own  works  into  *  autobiographical  sketches,'  *  essays' 
and  *  confessions.' 

2. 

The  instance  from  Southey  in  Murray's  New  English  'Dic- 
tionary should  be  hyphenated  (* auto-biographer')  as  printed  in 
Southey's  essay  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  May,  1809.  There 
is  a  doubly  capitalized  and  hyphenated  *  Auto-Biographer  '  ap- 
plied sarcastically  to  Coleridge  by  Hazlitt  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  August,  I8I7.  Coleridge  is  even  more  emphatic, 
using   four  capitals!     He   writes   of   a   book   he    projected,  but 

23 


never  succeeded  in  publishing,  that  its  preface  was  to  be  'illus- 
trated by  fragments  of  AUTO-biography '  (Letter  of  September 
I  2,  I8I4,vol.  ii.  632,  in  edition  of  Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge,  Bos- 
ton 1895).  Then  there  is  the  apparently  unique  'Autobiogra- 
phia' in  Coleridge's  letter  of  July  29,  181  5  :  'What  I  first  intended 
as  a  preface  to  an  '^  Autobiographia  Literaria/"  {Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge^  by  Campbell,  London  1894,  p.  212.)  Bearing  in 
mind  his  fondness  for  making  terms  out  of  classical  elements^ 
is  not  Coleridge  most  likely  the  coiner  of  *  autobiography '? 


3. 

'Autobiography'  and  its  relatives  appear  in  English  diction- 
aries soon  after  1820  and  in  French,  German  and  Italian 
dictionaries  somewhat  later.  A  remarkably  early  German  in- 
stance occurs  in  the  twenty-seventh  chapter  of  Jean  Paul  Rich- 
ter's  Leben  FiheUs^  composed  at  intervals  from  1806  to  181  I 
and  first  printed  in  181  2.  It  reads:  'Was  man  Selbstlebens- 
beschreibung.  Autobiographic,  Confessions  u.  s.  w.  nennt.' 
This  is  the  sole  instance  of  'Autobiographic  '  and  of '  Selbstle- 
bensbeschreibung'  in  the  book.  Jean  Paul's  wavering  use  of 
capitals  and  the  hyphen  in  '  Selbstlebensbeschreibung'  'Selbst- 
Lebensbeschreiber '  ( chapter  2 2 )  and '  Selbst-Beschreiber '  (chap- 
ter 27)  is  closely  like  the  unstable  earlier  manner  of  printing 
'autobiography'  in  English.  'Autobiographic'  in  Jean  Paul  may 
have  intimate  relation  to  Coleridge's  use  of  the  word,  but  it 
does  not  seem  likely  that  Jean  Paul  is  the  inventor. 


4. 

The  carelessness  of  editors  in  printing  'Autobiography'  as  a 
title-word  of  books  not  styled  so  by  their  authors  is  common 
enough.  In  the  '  /Jutobiography  and  Life  of  Robert  ^lair/  who 
died  in  1666,  the  word  'autobiography'  is  nowhere  in  the  text 
of  M'Crie's  edition,  transcribed  from  the  original  manuscript 
(Edinburgh  1848).     The  title-word  is  evidently  the  editor's,  not 

24 


i^. 


'^■'<m.^*rt-^^*-e-^    /<*r     <:-#x/ 


-^v^^*^^/-*^^ 

^ 


''-^  .6Cu-,^  './Si^^AJ^,  t^/9C^/£^  ^<gt_;ii  :2Sv-^'^^-^  —  r'*:^ 


^^/. 


.^5^^ 


i. 


i^ 


^. 


Photograph  of  first  page  of  the  autograph  manuscript  of  Franklin's  'Autobiography';  about  two  fifths  natural 
size.  There  is  no  title.  The  only  entries  at  the  top  of  the  page  are  the  figure  I  over  the  left  column,  the  words 
'Dear  Son'  and  the  place  and  date  (  'Twyford  at  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph's  1771' )  over  the  right  column. 


the  author's.  One  edition  of  the  memoirs  of  Gibbon  I  have 
consulted  prints  'Autobiography'  in  one  place,  'Life'  in  an- 
other and  the  correct  'Memoirs'  in  another,  as  the  title.  The 
series  of  some  thirty  volumes  printed  in  London  from  1820  to 
1830,  under  the  proper  enough  general  title  /lutobiography^  con- 
tains a  lot  of  autobiographies,  but  not  one  of  them  is  so  named 
by  its  author.  'Autobiography'  as  a  title-word  in  books  written 
earlier  than  the  nineteenth  century  is  presumably  not  the  au- 
thor's title. 

Franklin's  ^JJutobiography/  as  it  is  commonly  called,  has  spe- 
cial interest  for  Amicricans.  As  it  is  all  but  certain  the  term 
did  not  exist  in  his  time,  some  other  heading  seems  more  ap- 
propriate, if  only  to  avoid  the  implication  that  he  used  a  word 
which  did  not  then  exist.  'Autobiography'  is  nowhere  in  the 
text  of  Bigelow's  final  and  only  standard  edition,  reproduced 
directly  from  Franklin's  autograph  [The  Life  of  Franklin^  Writ- 
ten by  Himself  Edited  by  the  Hon.  John  Bigelow.  Fourth 
edition,  Philadelphia  I  900).  As  there  is  no  title  or  suggestion 
of  a  title-word  in  the  body  of  the  text,  I  sought  to  ascertain 
what  heading,  if  any,  Franklin  had  given  his  book.  By  Mr. 
Bigelow's  courtesy  I  have  personally  examined  the  autograph 
manuscript.  Franklin  wrote  no  title  whatever!  as  appears 
from  the  accompanying  photograph  I  had  made  of  the  first  page 
of  the  manuscript  last  November.  Mr.  Bigelow's  title, 'TTze  Life 
of  Franklin/  though  necessarily  not  the  author's,  is  most  ap- 
propriate, because  it  not  only  describes  the  book  properly,  as 
indeed  'autobiography'  does,  but  also  accords  with  literary 
usage  in  Franklin's  time,  as  'autobiography'  does  not. 


It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  course  of  nineteenth-cen- 
tury autobiographies  in  English  literature.  Individualism  comes 
in  like  a  flood.      'These    autobiographical    times  of   ours!'  is 

25 


Carlyle's  amused  ejaculation.  The  influences  of  the  French 
Revolution,  mediated  through  Coleridge  and  others,  are  mani- 
fest at  the  start,  diminishing  as  the  native  tone  asserts  itself 
more  and  more.  The  number  of  these  self-written  Lives  is  very 
large,  large  enough  to  be  disquieting.  Scribimus  indocti  doctique 
poemata  passim.  It  wakens  the  fear  anybody  may  feel  warranted 
in  writing  his  Life  for  public  perusal  and  that  the  question 
whether  everybody's  Life  is  worth  printing  will  be  dismissed  as 
unnecessary,  if  not  invidious. 


26 


877188 

Manufactured  by 

leAYLORD  BROS.  Inc. 

Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

Stoclclon,  Calif. 


1 

Date  Due 

r 

1    OF    5-5 

I 

diiiUi»*->"*<Ff 

?  *'"«••- 

" 

^ 

PA6093.W51  ,    , 

Roman  autobiography,  particularly 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00005  6384 


